


fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die

by hoywfiction



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky is gay, High School AU, I don't want to spoil it so I won't say what triggers, I hate that I've done this to my son, M/M, May be triggering if easily triggered by depressing shit, Modern AU, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve is sick, a little fluff, bucky loves steve, heavily gay, neither are superheroes, otherwise do not, please, protect bucky, read if you feel mentally stable for something really sad, steve and bucky attend the same high school, steve is maybe gay, the avengers aren't a thing in this au, title taken from 'The Show Must Go On' by Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoywfiction/pseuds/hoywfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are three facts that Bucky Barnes knows about his life. One: Steve Rogers is his soulmate. Two: He could lose Steve any day. Three is one that he won't learn until later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die

There are three facts that Bucky Barnes knows about his life. One: Steve Rogers is his soulmate. He isn't the guy who turns heads when he enters the room, or has girls hanging off his arms or anything like that. He's skinny, short, awkward, but he's also kind, brave, and stupid beyond compare. Even if he doesn't know Bucky's in love with him, it'll never change, and Bucky knows that. Two: He could lose Steve any day. Three is one that he won't learn until later.

Number two is the one that consumes him every moment that he's awake, and most of them even when he's not. Severe asthma, anemia, a heart murmur, constant fevers, diabetes— That's just a glimpse at the list of things that are trying to kill Steve. And yet the kid never stops with the optimism.

"What, you don't think I could get through baseball tryouts?" he asks, walking on the short wall surrounding the school garden, making him almost his friend's height. Bucky wants to point out that he had trouble lifting his own school bag yesterday, but he decides against it.

"I don't think you _should_ ," he sighs, frowning slightly as he looks over, seeing Steve's round blue eyes zeroing in on something up ahead. He follows his gaze, coming to look upon Stark. He's standing just outside the school doors with a group of four or five giggly girls surrounding him, listening intently to whatever he's chewing their ears off about. Steve envies Howard, Bucky knows, and he has since they were in kindergarten. Howard's smart, strong, handsome, well-liked, and most importantly, healthy. Everything Steve's ever wished he were.

"He's probably talking about another invention," Steve says nonchalantly, snapping himself out of his trance and hopping down from the bricks, landing with only a slight stumble. Bucky chuckles lightly, tossing an arm over his shoulders and drawing him into his side as they pass Howard, entering the school building.

"Yeah, probably," he says, and even though Steve's seemingly let it go, Bucky knows him better than that. He knows his mind's still racing about it, that he's comparing himself to someone so different from him. That's why Bucky's mind keeps going, though he manages not to say the things he thinks of. _You're so much more than he is. You're perfect to me. You don't have to be liked by everyone to be loved. You don't need girls. You_ —

"Buck?" He looks over at Steve, who's staring up at him with an expectancy on his face, so he smiles.

"Sorry, was just thinking," he says, glancing around at the classrooms before pushing his best friend towards his own. "Go on, I'll come getcha right after first period."

Steve stands in the doorway to his class, giving him a look. "Wait, why first period?"

"We're ditching out," Bucky declares, "you and me."

To his surprise, Steve grins, and rather then protesting just responds with, "End of first period, you and me."

 

 

Everything goes wrong before the end of first period even arrives. Bucky's a little more than halfway through ignoring his philosophy course when his phone starts going off, vibrating loudly in his back pocket. He fishes it out as the rest of the class—teacher included—stares at him, but any trace of shame he feels dissipates quickly as he sees the caller ID.

"What happened?" he asks as soon as he answers, knowing that something is wrong.

"He's okay, honey, he's fine, but he—"

"Mr. Barnes," the teacher scolds firmly, his eyebrows furrowed downwards at him.

"Shut up," Bucky shoots back, glaring at him, and while there's shock on the faces of every other student, he purses his lips and does as he's been told. "Mom, what happened?"

"He's at the hospital now, he had an asthma attack and he didn't have his inhaler," Mrs. Barnes explains to her son, and the scowl on his face deepens.

"Why wouldn't he have his inhaler?" he demands, as if she somehow knows. But he knows the answer, someone's taken it and hidden it from him as some sick joke. It isn't the first time.

"Mr. Barnes, would you like to excuse yourself?" asks his teacher, a condescending edge to the question. He stands up, shooting him a dangerous glare as he begins exiting the classroom, making sure to display his middle finger high and proud as he does so.

"Fuck yourself, Mr. Aspinall," he spits out, earning a gasp from his mother.

"James Buchanan Barnes, apologise!" she shrieks, but he just gives a sort of growl as he storms down the hallway. "James, _now_!"

He stops walking, letting out a long breath, then retraces his steps. The class is stunned into silence, Mr. Aspinall sat with a bitter look on his face at his desk. He glances over everyone before giving a very clearly forced smile towards his teacher. " _Sorry_."

He hangs up the phone on his mother, looking back at the man at the desk, and just as he's turning to leave he flips up both his middle fingers for him to see. When he's told he has detention for the rest of the week after returning to school the next morning, he isn't really surprised.

 

 

Asthma isn't the only thing Steve goes to the hospital for in the next two months. A few days later he ends up there because his blood sugar gets too low. A week or so after that, his lungs give out. That's when they keep him in the hospital to monitor him and make sure nothing else happens.

Bucky doesn't leave his side, he doesn't even sleep. Steve worries, Bucky worries, and they both want the other to be okay. Neither of them are.

"Aren't you worried about school?" Steve asks, rubbing gently at the assorted wires attached to his chest.

"I don't give a shit about school," Bucky grumbles, his head rested atop his arms, which are folded on the side of Steve's hospital bed. He feels him stroking his hair, and for the first time in days he lets his eyes fall closed.

"I'm sorry Buck, I didn't want this to happen," Steve says, his voice soft. Though he doesn't open his eyes or move (he's enjoying the hair petting too much), Bucky scoffs.

"S'not your fault," he points out, and even with his efforts to fight it, he can feel sleep dragging him away from consciousness. "Stevie?"

"Yeah?" he hears him ask.

"I'm tired."

Bucky sleeps for once that night, lying beside Steve in the hospital bed despite being told he shouldn't by the nurses. (Once they'd seen the two of them asleep, Steve curled against Bucky's chest, they'd relented.) Nightmares don't flood his head, ironically enough. Instead he dreams of the boy beside him, dreams that the love he feels for him is returned. That they get to have a happy ending together.

He's woken up by the rapid screech of an alarm, and before he's fully coherent there are nurses and doctors surrounding him, hurrying him to his feet and out of the way.

Steve's stopped breathing.

 

 

Bucky doesn't dare sleep again after that night. Steve can say he's fine as many times as he wants to, can say it until there's no more air in those shitty lungs of his, but he won't believe him.

"I'm with you till the end of the line. Remember?" Steve swallows, lolling his head to the side and staring off at the blank wall across from him. He lets out a sort of sigh, wriggling his nose slightly. He isn't used to the tubes taped into his nostrils, keeping his lungs working while the doctors try to figure out why they aren't working on their own like they're supposed to.

"What if this _is_  the end of the line, Buck?" he ask, his voice quiet, and when Bucky looks up at him there are tears in his eyes. So he pulls him into a gentle hug, burying his face into his bony shoulder.

"Don't say that," he breathes, loud enough for Steve to hear as he hugs him back.

"I'll be okay if it is... Will you?" Steve whispers, and Bucky falls apart, crying into his hospital gown and clinging to him as tight as he dares.

"No... No I won't," he manages to say between sobs, tossing dignity to the wind. He won't be okay, not if he's gone.

"I love you, Bucky," Steve says, and Bucky pulls back to look at him, giving what he can of a smile as he wipes his eyes.

"I love you too, man," he says in a choked voice, smiling just a little as Steve starts rubbing little circles on his back.

 

 

When Steve kisses him as they're watching some stupid TV show they don't even know, he isn't expecting it, and he drops his cup of juice on the bed sheets. They can't stop laughing about it, even though the nurse who has to come clean it up and change the bedding seems a little annoyed. When he finally goes, Bucky looks at Steve, who's gone back to watching the TV show and eating some carrots from his lunch tray.

Bucky wonders how it is that not everyone can see how beautiful he is. Sure, he's not muscular, and right now he looks even more sickly than usual, but that doesn't take away from how truly gorgeous he is. Not to Bucky.

He gently takes his face, turns him towards himself, and kisses him properly this time. There's no juice problems this time around, but instead his heart rate spikes and the same nurse from before comes in. For the second time, they can't contain their laughter as they see the shocked expression on his face as he stands dumbfounded in the doorway.

 

 

Bucky stays awake and watches him that night. He's curled up against his side, the drone of the heart monitor nothing but background noise in comparison to the whirring of the ventilator. Despite it all, Steve looks peaceful and at ease. He even has a little smile on his lips, his hand curled firmly with Bucky's even while being unconscious, their fingers laced together without plans of letting each other go.

It's mostly dark in the room, but in the hallway the lights are as bright as ever. Since he doesn't dare sleep, he watches as the nurses make their rounds, poking their heads into rooms at intervals. He makes a point to smile and wave at all of them with his free hand. The nurse from the juice incident just gives him a look, but the two female nurses he waves to smile happily and wave back. The younger one even comes in and asks him if he wants anything to eat or drink, in a hushed whisper. He's very grateful when she cheerfully comes back ten minutes later with a hot cup of coffee, even bringing him a few packets of sugar and creamer.

The caffeine doesn't help much, and he falls asleep at three in the morning, his chin rested atop Steve's hair.

 

 

He wakes up at seven, to the same terrifying screech as a few nights ago. He looks to Steve, and he feels his stomach clench as he sees him gasping, his face pale as he claws at his chest. The nurses come in, he's pushed away. This time, Steve's rushed to the ER. The same young nurse from the night comes back with distress in her features after a few hours, wringing her hands in front of her body.

She opens her mouth as if she's about to speak, but under Bucky's sad and tired stare she instead sits beside him. She swallows harshly, and he feels like he may throw up as she rests a hand gently on his arm.

His heart's given out. There's nothing they can do.

 

 

The clothes aren't all that's black in Bucky's life as he stands in the graveyard, staring down at the freshly packed soil. It's everything. Everything is dark beneath the clear skies, dull while surrounded in birdsong, ugly amidst the yellow dandelions strewn about in arbitrary patches in the grass.

Not many people have come. Bucky, his mother, the young nurse from the hospital (Helen, Bucky's learned her name is). Howard Stark comes by after the service to offer his condolences to Bucky. Bucky offers in return the words he'd given to Mr. Aspinall all that time ago, walking away.

It's today that Bucky realises he's known fact number three about his life for some time now. One: Steve Rogers is his soulmate. Two: He could lose Steve any day. Three: There is such thing as too late.

He sits against a tree, hidden from his mother, from Helen, from Howard. He clasps a hand over his mouth as the tears begin flowing down his cheeks, shaking his body, making him feel weak. Sixteen, that's how many years Steve got to live. Sixteen years is how many years Bucky got with the love of his life. A week. That's how long Bucky had with him after learning he loved him back.

Forever. That's how long Bucky will suffer without him.

"Till the end of the line," he says gently as he removes his hand from his mouth, sniffling and looking up towards the blue skies above, as blue as his eyes. "I'm still here..."

Forever is how long he will love him.


End file.
